Dane in Dubbo

"What is Dubbo?" That was the first question 24-year-old Maria Goltermann had when she found out she would be visiting Australia from Denmark. Maria has 12 weeks to learn all she can about Dubbo, its visitor offerings and the Australian lifestyle.

A 50 Km. drive from Dubbo and you are in Wellington! Not everything is long distances here in AUS.

And that was very convenient when someone wanted to show me the Wellington Caves, on Thursday.

After a visit to the Visitor Centre in Wellington, to gather info about the town, we were off to the caves. Here we were greeted by our own guide. I was a little sceptical about going into these caves, but I was really drawn by her passion for the caves and the history behind them.

Strike a pose and ready for the caves!

You Aussies keep telling me that the history of my country is much older than yours, but hey! These caves were millions of years old, I’m pretty sure you won’t find many castles in Europe that old.

It is hard to wrap your head around the fact that fossils and full skeleton casts from a Thylacaleo and Diprotodon from the time of the dinosaurs have been found in these caves! We even got to touch bones and teeth from these animals! This all happened in the Bone Cave and Fossil mine. The cool thing is, that you are allowed to come so close to pieces of the history that goes way beyond the time where people were even in Australia, and the guide will tell you stories that you wouldn’t even have thought of going into the caves yourself. Who knew that the Wellington Caves were where palaeontology was born?

Another Must-See is the astonishing Cathedral Cave. This Lime-stone cave is just beautiful and well presented with the famous stalagmite “The Altar” that reaches 15 metres in height. What made it even more stunning was the water coming down the sides of it due to the rainy weather, as well as the water dripping from the stalactite.

I would definitely recommend this to visitors to the area, not to speak of locals who haven’t been! Put an orange helmet on and go back in time with the Wellington Cave guides :D – We even made it back to Dubbo for lunch! How great is it to have all these activities basically in your own backyard!

This also means that I can cross off another town on the list! I’m sure I will be able to go home and talk to many European backpackers that haven’t been to the same places as I have here in AUS, which I think is pretty cool.
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I can’t believe it’s been 3 weeks since I got to Australia, and I’ve already been to so many places. Not to speak of the weather that has dried up a whole lot more than when I arrived. And it seems like next week will almost be as warm (or cold) as it is in Denmark at the moment, which I find really amusing, as people back home didn’t understand why I chose to leave when it was finally summer :D

Entering the Fossil Mine (I'm not sure what's more scary, being in a cave or my face)